Democracy Gone Astray

Democracy, being a human construct, needs to be thought of as directionality rather than an object. As such, to understand it requires not so much a description of existing structures and/or other related phenomena but a declaration of intentionality.

This blog aims at creating labeled lists of published infringements of such intentionality, of points in time where democracy strays from its intended directionality. In addition to outright infringements, this blog also collects important contemporary information and/or discussions that impact our socio-political landscape.

All the posts here were published in the electronic media – main-stream as well as fringe, and maintain links to the original texts.

[NOTE: Due to changes I haven't caught on time in the blogging software, all of the 'Original Article' links were nullified between September 11, 2012 and December 11, 2012. My apologies.]

Saturday, January 07, 2012

Over the past several years, entities closely linked to the private security firm Blackwater have provided intelligence, training and security services to US and foreign governments as well as several multinational corporations, including Monsanto, Chevron, the Walt Disney Company, Royal Caribbean Cruise Lines and banking giants Deutsche Bank and Barclays, according to documents obtained by The Nation. Blackwater's work for corporations and government agencies was contracted using two companies owned by Blackwater's owner and founder, Erik Prince: Total Intelligence Solutions and the Terrorism Research Center (TRC). Prince is listed as the chairman of both companies in internal company documents, which show how the web of companies functions as a highly coordinated operation. Officials from Total Intelligence, TRC and Blackwater (which now calls itself Xe Services) did not respond to numerous requests for comment for this article.

One of the most incendiary details in the documents is that Blackwater, through Total Intelligence, sought to become the "intel arm" of Monsanto, offering to provide operatives to infiltrate activist groups organizing against the multinational biotech firm.

Governmental recipients of intelligence services and counterterrorism training from Prince's companies include the Kingdom of Jordan, the Canadian military and the Netherlands police, as well as several US military bases, including Fort Bragg, home of the elite Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC), and Fort Huachuca, where military interrogators are trained, according to the documents. In addition, Blackwater worked through the companies for the Defense Intelligence Agency, the Defense Threat Reduction Agency and the US European Command.

As the No Child Left Behind Act turns 10 on Sunday, the bill’s future remains uncertain, with Congress and the Obama administration divided over how to update the controversial law. Meanwhile, NCLB has been largely irrelevant to two of the major trends in national education policy-making over the past three years: the push to tie teacher evaluation and pay to student achievement data, and the move toward a Common Core curriculum in math and English. (The main lever pushing those changes is the Obama administration’s deployment of billions of federal grant dollars to states that agree to adhere to those priorities.) Nevertheless, NCLB has had a profound effect on what students experience in the classroom and on the way the American public talks about its schools. Here is my assessment of how NCLB has changed American education over the past decade, both for the better and for the worse.

A spotlight on the achievement gap.
NCLB required states to collect and publicize data on student performance broken down by race, class, English-language learner status, and special education-status. As a result, it is no longer possible for the media or political elite to ignore the inequities in our education system. Unfortunately, there has been very little acknowledgement of the fact that gaps in academic outcomes have multiple causes—some of which are located within schools, but the vast majority of which can be attributed to the socioeconomic characteristics of students’ families and neighborhoods. Critiquing the law from a more conservative perspective, Mike Petrilli and Rick Hess point out that the laser-focus on gaps between rich and poor kids has detracted from attempts to provide gifted and talented students with more stimulating instruction.

Nation readers know the record-setting levels of poverty in America today: nearly one in six citizens below the official poverty line of $22,300 for a family of four, including one of five kids. African-American and Hispanic children are even worse off, with poverty rates of 40 percent and 37 percent, respectively. More than one in three Americans are struggling on incomes below twice the poverty threshold—roughly $45,000 for a family of four.

In 2011, The Nation kept the plight of the poor and near-poor front and center.

When Congress debated budget cuts in the abstract, The Nation showed their real human costs; when Representatives voted against the interests of their districts, The Nation held them accountable; and when decimated state and local budgets hit poor people with a vengeance, The Nation told their stories. Finally, if you didn’t catch the year-end Occupy the Safety Netissue, check it out, you will get a clear picture of the state of the welfare system—food stamps, housing, TANFand more—it sure ain’t the hammock Congressman Paul Ryan says it is.

In 2012, TheNation.com will post This Week in Poverty every Friday morning as part of its continuing coverage of an issue editor Katrina vanden Heuvel calls “the shame of our nation.” The blog will track the vital statistics that are too often ignored; provide updates on legislative efforts at the national, state, and local levels; report on the battles activists are fighting in their communities; summarize cutting-edge ideas, studies, and proposals offered by antipoverty experts and organizations; find opportunities for action, highlight programs that are working, flag must-read articles, bust myths, list quotes of the week, and more.

Today, a look back at five key things we learned about poverty in 2011:

OTTAWA - Several hundred of the prime minister's civil service staff donned full combat gear, pretended to visit an Afghan village, and sucked on name tags using straws in a zany day of games meant to build morale.

The so-called Amazing PCO Race, referring to the Privy Council Office, included other challenges only a bureaucrat could relish: balancing a fake budget, spotting errors in bogus briefing notes, and assembling a jigsaw puzzle of cabinet ministers' faces.

Almost 370 public servants in 40 teams collected points for each successful task, with the winners promised a pizza lunch with Wayne Wouters, clerk of the Privy Council.

The "good natured rabble-rousing" took place last Sept. 15, in a radical departure from the usual town hall, held annually to keep bureaucrats pumped about their jobs at the Privy Council Office, the central organ of government and Stephen Harper's own department. More than 1,000 people work in the various sections of the PCO.

While a crisis continues to grip families living in the northern Ontario community of Attawapiskat, at least one Conservative MP acknowledges there is a communications problem between the First Nations leadership and the federal government.

In an interview with CBC Radio's The House, Conservative MP and member of the Standing Committee on Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development Kyle Seeback tells host Evan Solomon, "Clearly, there seems to be an issue with communication between the two."

"But what I urge them to do, is to move past that and deal with the urgent needs of the people there."

Seeback's comments come on the heels of another missive fired by Attawapiskat Chief Theresa Spence against the Minister of Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development John Duncan.

In a five-page open letter dated Jan.5, Spence refutes an accusation made Thursday by Duncan that her council is obstructing the flow of cash needed to pay the community's bills by refusing to release information requested by the government-appointed third-party manager.

While the Arab Spring is a significant development, for Israel, the season doesn't matter.

At first glance, it appears that the Arab Spring has had an isolating effect on Israel, and damaged its regional position and strategic calculus. But this is only impressionistic, because the Arab Spring has coincided with changed domestic politics in Israel: the rise of a right-wing government more or less supportive of illiberal efforts among secular nationalists, religious Zionists, and the Haredi.

Indeed, even Israeli leaders and commentators feed into this impression of the Arab Spring as a new development Israel must contend with. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, for instance, sees a dark tide of intolerance of religious fundamentalism diametrically opposed to Israel’s democratic values. The (not unexpected) rise of Islamist parties where open elections have taken place is a trend that Defense Minister Ehud Barak has called “very, very disturbing.” The Israel Defense Forces chief of staff stated that these trends “are redrawing the range of threats faced by Israel.”

Others argue that the Arab Spring provides an opportunity for Israel to connect to the publics who have taken control of their destiny and will soon be in control of their countries, and together build a new Middle East.

WASHINGTON — Losing his Senate seat might have been the best thing that ever happened to Rick Santorum's bank account.

In 2006, the Republican presidential hopeful earned about $200,000 from his Senate salary and book royalties. From January 2010 to August 2011, he earned at least $1.3 million as he cashed in on his 16 years in Congress by working as a corporate consultant, political pundit and board member.

The financial disclosure report Santorum filed last August shows how his income has changed. Many voters are taking their first hard look at the former congressman and two-term senator from Pennsylvania following his near-win in the Iowa caucuses.

Santorum's resume contrasts with campaign rhetoric that casts him as an outsider who would shake up Washington. It also appears at odds with the image that Santorum stresses as a candidate with hardscrabble roots in blue-collar Pennsylvania and as the grandson of an Italian immigrant coal miner.

In a change of policy that comes after more than two years of public and embarrassing scoldings by a federal judge, the Securities and Exchange Commission will no longer allow some defendants to deny guilt when they settle their case.

Companies and individuals that settle a civil case with the SEC that also have admitted to or been convicted of criminal violations in a related matter will no longer be allowed to say that they "neither admit nor deny" the agency's charges, according to the agency.

The policy would end a practice that allowed such celebrated villains as Bernard Madoff -- who was sentenced to 150 years in prison for masterminding the biggest financial con job in history -- to settle charges with the SEC without admitting or denying wrongdoing. However, it wouldn't affect most SEC settlements, which come independent of any criminal charges.

A police chief, obstetrician and former Conservative MP are among the latest string of seven new appointees to the Senate – a list the NDP has denounced as “hand puppets for the PMO.”

Prime Minister Stephen Harper issued a news release late Friday announcing Norman Doyle, a former Conservative MP from Newfoundland, and Ghislain Maltais, a former Liberal member of the Quebec national assembly who worked for the Conservative Party of Canada since 2006, including as the party’s Quebec director, will take seats in the red chamber.

Senators earn an annual salary of $132,300, with add-ons for special positions.

Vernon White, who served as chief of Ottawa Police Service since May 2007 and worked with the RCMP for more than 20 years, will join Dr. Asha Seth, an obstetrician and gynecologist from Toronto, as new senators representing Ontario. JoAnne Buth, president of the Canola Council of Canada, was named for Manitoba.

On Tuesday, independent Canadian ISP Teksavvy announced its new service plans, effectively dropping the other shoe in the long-running usage-based internet billing debate. While on the surface there are some things to like, at the core the new plans–and regulatory system they’re based on–paint a disturbing picture of the future of Canada’s Internet.

The CRTC set things in motion in November with its government-ordered revisit of the issue and came up with something called capacity-based billing, a sort of diet UBB. In essence, instead of large network owners charging indie ISPs for every byte their customers download, the new system requires the smaller companies to buy chunks of capacity based on how much they think they’re going to need on a monthly basis.

As Jesse Brown noted on this site earlier this week, while some commentators praised the decision, others–including Teksavvy–said the regulator screwed things up again. While the system itself was okay, the fees that a few big network owners are allowed to charge through it were way too high, the company said, which will inevitably result in price increases for customers.

All eyes have since been on Teksavvy, one of the largest and most vocal of the UBB opponents, to see what it would do. In the end, the company’s new plans and the accompanying explanation are something of a mixed bag. On the one hand, most existing plans are going up by $3 to $4, which fits the predictions by some observers that the CRTC’s ruling would push up rates by 10 to 15 per cent. The issue, as Teksavvy puts it, is that while its fixed costs actually went down somewhat thanks to the decision, the variable ones can potentially go up significantly. The company’s pricing notice reads:

Everybody’s talking about Rick Santorum, a.k.a. the previously ignored Republican primary candidate from Pennsylvania (also Jerry Seinfeld’s unfunny, Roman Catholic doppelganger) who couldn’t get a word in edgewise at any of the GOP debates. Until this week, he was far better known for his “Google Problem” than his warmongering, privacy quashing political aspirations. Today Santorum is a rising star, setting his socially conservative sights on the state of New Hampshire, after placing an extremely close second to Romney in the Iowa caucuses this week. He seems to think his near-victory in Iowa is proof that you don’t have to be a moderate to win a general election.

Wealthy donors appear to be buying Government policy by securing “preferential” access to ministers and senior politicians, the standards watchdog has warned.

Sir Christopher Kelly said the perceived influence of rich businessmen over politicians is undermining public trust in Westminster. He cited the Coalition’s planning reforms as an example of a policy that raised suspicions after The Daily Telegraph disclosed that property developers were paying thousands of pounds for access to senior Tories.

Such preferential treatment leads to increasing concerns that there is “no smoke without fire”, the chairman of the Committee on Standards in Public Life said in an interview with The Daily Telegraph.

“There is no doubt that significant donors do have preferential access to political decision makers,” he said. “The thought that anyone would give such a large sum of money to a party solely for altruistic reasons is quite a difficult one. The risk is policy being influenced in other, more subtle, ways because some people have access because they have given donations.

“There is a risk of it [influencing of policy by donors] happening and more importantly there is a public perception that it does happen.”

The comments by Sir Christopher amount to one of the most strident warnings yet that Britain’s political system is at risk of being corrupted by wealthy individuals.

When Enbridge recently held its annual meeting of shareholders in Calgary, the company and the city’s business sector received a powerful message about the obstacles in the way of expanding tar sands pipelines to the Pacific coast. First Nations from BC, Alberta and Manitoba gathered together to express their firm conviction, to federal and provincial governments, and to the oil industry, that oil developments and pipelines must not be built on the traditional territories of First Nations without their consent. The events in Calgary marked the first time that First Nations from both inside and outside BC have made such a common statement in solidarity with each other, in relation to tar sands infrastructure expansion.

On Tuesday, May 10, representatives of the Yinka Dene Alliance – whose traditional territories would hold more than 25% of Enbridge’s proposed route – met with leaders of Alexander First Nation from Alberta, who hold territory near the beginning of the pipeline route northeast of Edmonton, the Blood Tribe and Lubicon Cree Nation, also from Alberta, and the Roseau River Anishinabe Nation, which has an Enbridge pipeline already on their territories in Manitoba. The Nations signed the Calgary Statement of Solidarity, which recognizes the Indigenous law-based positions taken by the Coastal First Nations in banning oil tankers, and the Nations of the Fraser River watershed in banning crude oil pipelines in their watershed. All of the gathered Nations stated together that “[t]he Enbridge Northern Gateway Pipeline and tankers project will expose Indigenous and non-Indigenous communities from the Pacific Coast across to Alberta to the risk of pipeline and supertanker oil spills”. They also stated that the urgency of climate change and its impact on Indigenous peoples compels them to take action. They concluded:

Enbridge states that it intends to proceed with its Northern Gateway pipeline and tankers, with or without First Nations consent. A decision by Canada to approve this project, without the free, prior and informed consent of affected Nations, will be a violation of our Treaties, our rights, and our laws, and will be in breach of the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples and other international accords.THEREFORE we stand in solidarity with the Coastal First Nations, and the Nations who have signed the Save the Fraser Declaration, and are united in stating that the Enbridge Northern Gateway Pipeline and tanker project, as well as other fossil fuel development projects including Keystone XL, must not proceed without obtaining the free, prior and informed consent of all affected First Nations.AND FURTHER if such consent is not obtained, no construction of such projects shall proceed.

The international community has adopted the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, despite high-profile opposition from Canada and three other countries.

The non-binding declaration, which sets out global human rights standards for indigenous populations, was easily approved Thursday by the UN General Assembly in New York — with only Canada, New Zealand, the United States and Australia dissenting. Eleven countries abstained.

In his address to the General Assembly before the vote, Canada's UN ambassador, John McNee, said Canada had "significant concerns" over the declaration's wording on provisions addressing lands and resources, as well as another article calling on states to obtain prior informed consent with indigenous groups before enacting new laws or administrative measures.

Article 26 of the UN declaration states: "Indigenous peoples have the right to the lands, territories and resources which they have traditionally owned, occupied or otherwise used or acquired."

McNee said the provision is "overly broad, unclear and capable of a wide variety of interpretations" that could lead to the reopening of previously settled land claims and existing treaties.

Over the next few years, the Harper government will spend tens of millions of dollars celebrating the 200th anniversary of the War of 1812. They've even developed an iPhone app, which they claim will help young people increase their "awareness of Canada's origins and the sources of our freedom and democracy."

The whole thing is in fact an exercise in politics, as much about 2012 as 1812. It's part of the relentless -- often subtle, sometimes in your face -- militarist course of the Harper government. While I'm not expert enough to declare Harper's history of 1812 an outright whitewash, after reading the government's website for the commemoration it's easy enough to see where key elements of the war are omitted or soft-pedalled.

For comparison, I consulted the late Pierre Berton's book The Invasion of Canada. Berton's summary of the War of 1812 is quite different than the one presented by the Harper government. First of all, Berton notes that on the Canadian side, "democracy was a wicked word and the army was run autocratically by British professionals."

As it happens, the origin of democracy and freedom in Canada was of course not the War of 1812, nor the much bloodier slaughter of WWI a century later, as is some times preposterously implied through insidious official Remembrance Day speeches. Quite the opposite. An honest reading of history reveals that what actual democracy and freedom there is results from a series of protracted struggles against Canada's establishment.

Berton explains that there is "little evidence to support" the "common cant" about the War of 1812 "that the diverse population of Upper Canada… closed ranks to defeat the enemy." The "myth of a people's war" was propagated over the years by the "pro-British ruling elite." I encourage everyone to read the full book for themselves; Berton paints a compelling picture of a war that was both unnecessary and unwanted.

About 60 unionized Salvation Army workers went on strike in Ottawa on Friday, but the charitable organization has assured the homeless they will not be left in the cold.

The strike by members of the Public Service Alliance of Canada will not affect those who frequent the Booth Centre, a homeless shelter at 171 George Street that houses about 150 homeless men every night, according to Michael Maidment, a Salvation Army spokesman in Ottawa.

"We will stay open and we will do that with our existing staff and management team," Maidment said. "Of course, the safety and concern of those we serve is of paramount importance."

Homeless support workers on strike

Homeless men whom CBC News spoke with sided with the workers, who entered a strike position Dec. 20, and complimented the care they received at the centre.

"I don't blame them," said a man who only identified himself as George. "They should have equal parity with the Union Mission and the Shepherd's of Good Hope," he said. "They do exactly the same work just as well."

The PSAC is seeking a $5-an-hour wage hike, which they say would provide a salary similar to those paid workers at other local shelters.

The Salvation Army, which argues the difference is only $2-$4 an hour, said it is willing to go to binding arbitration to settle the dispute, but added the union has not formally responded to that request.

The world’s super-rich, led by Gulf sheiks and Russian tycoons, are taking delivery of ever larger and more luxurious European-made motor yachts this year, according to the latest superyacht ranking.

Financial and economic crisis in the West has crippled some European yacht makers. Ferretti, the debt-laden Italian manufacturer, is selling itself to China’s Shandong Heavy Industry Group for a fraction of its 2007 value of €1.7-billion ($2.2-billion). But demand from international billionaires at the very top end of the market has remained robust despite the economic crisis.

Superyachts.com, the luxury yachting web portal, says 11 new vessels, some the size of cruise liners, will join its annual top 100 ranking by length this year, compared with nine new entries last year.

This year’s largest entry is Topaz, a 147-metre yacht built by Germany’s Lurssen Yachts for an unknown owner, possibly a member of the ruling al-Nahyan family of Abu Dhabi.

Superyacht projects are often shrouded in secrecy, and research groups vie with each other to publish the first photographs and provide details of the latest additions to the fleet. Prices and customers’ names are frequently kept secret to shield owners from accusations of ostentatious living. The largest vessels cost well over $100-million and can cost more than $1-million a week to charter.

The Prime Minister is threatening to prevent foreign environmental interests from delaying the approval of a pipeline that would take bitumen from the Alberta oil sands to the West Coast for shipment to Asian markets.

The petroleum lobby group EthicalOil.org, which wants “foreigners and foreign groups” to be excluded from hearings on the proposed Northern Gateway pipeline that are to begin next week, appears to have a sympathetic ear in Stephen Harper.

“Growing concern has been expressed to me about the use of foreign money to really overload the public consultation phase of regulatory hearings just for the purpose of slowing down the process,” the Prime Minister told reporters Friday in Edmonton.

“This is something that is not good for the Canadian economy and the government of Canada will be taking a close look at how we can ensure that our regulatory processes are effective and deliver decisions in a reasonable amount of time.”

On Thursday, Kathryn Marshall, a spokesperson for EthicalOil.org. said Canadians have much at stake in the construction of the pipeline and “must take a stand against foreigners and their lobbying groups interfering in our decision.”